Centre co-director Prof Andrew Williams publishes 'Forgotten trials: the other side of Nuremberg' in History Extra, based on research for his recent book A Passing Fury: Searching for Justice at the End of World War II.

"A landmark in the history of international criminal justice, the Nuremberg Tribunal saw 24 major Nazi criminals brought to trial, with judges from the Allied powers presiding over the hearings. Eleven prominent Nazis were sentenced to death, while others received short prison sentences or no penalty at all. But, says Orwell Prize-winning author AT Williams, while the Nuremberg Tribunal became a symbol of the ‘free world’s’ choice of justice in the face of tyranny, aggression and atrocity, it was only a tiny fragment of a whole system of largely forgotten war crimes trials organised by the Allies across Europe".

Centre co-director Prof Andrew Williams recently published an article on Chilcot Report: Law in The Political Quarterly based on his ongoing research on the Iraq investigations.

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Questions of law permeate the Chilcot Report. All are shrouded in uncertainty. From the constitutional relationship between Prime Minister, Cabinet and Parliament to the legality of going to war, the Inquiry presided over by Sir John Chilcot touched upon many controversial legal issues. It resolved none. But then, it was not a court of law or a judicial inquiry, and never pretended to be. No one could have reasonably expected it to pronounce with conviction any judgement on the lawfulness of acts and decisions made by those who took the UK to war in Iraq. Instead, the Report provides information useful for those who wish to reach such judgements. Lawyers are already searching the vast document to inspire possible litigation, though that was not the concern of the Inquiry. It was supposed to determine what happened and learn lessons. Those were its very broad terms of reference.

But did the Inquiry deal effectively or properly with the legal issues which framed many of the decisions and actions it examined? In this article I look briefly at two key areas where law had particular relevance but, it is argued, received insufficient attention: the legal basis for going to war; and the conduct of the occupation after the initial hostilities were concluded. Both involve the application of international legal standards—a slippery subject for those seeking exactitude, but valuable for judging the political and military leaders nonetheless.

On the 4th May Madhu Mehra will present a research seminar hosted by the Law School's Centres for Criminal Justice and Human Rights in Practice on The limits of criminal remedies and victim centric approaches to justice, in the context of violence against women. She will draw on her work with crisis centres on violence against women, work on witch hunting in four states, and the recent monitoring of rape trials in special courts in Delhi - that bring out the limitations and problems with criminal remedies - and the troubling absence of state support to victims.

Click here for more info and registration.

Madhu Mehra an alumna of the Law School, founding member of Partners for Law in Development in India and leading gender and human rights activist is coming to Warwick on Global Research Priority, International Development/ IAS visiting international fellowship (20th April to 5th May 2016). She will be contributing to the Beyond Development symposium 22-24th April and events around the GRP International Development's annual public lecture on 25th April as well as a number of other events including a workshop hosted by the Centre for the Study of Women and Gender on socio legal methodologies in India and undertaking a lunchtime session for the South Asia/Another India network on her research on witch hunting in contemporary India.